hangovers in

Post-election hangovers in French Polynesia

Alter a month-long orgy of intoxicating campaign speeches, everybody in French Polynesia is suffering from a severe post electoral hangover. The worst afflicted is no doubt the former majority leader. Francis Sanford, just turned 70. who is the only re-elccled member of his Ha api parly. He has not appeared in public since the poll, and was far away in the Tuamolu islands during the inaugural session of the new assembly. But he is a born lighter and will certainly soon come out swinging again.

Not even the number one winner, Gaston Flosse, has escaped persistent headaches which arc not all due to the numerous champagne parlies celebrating his victory.

To begin with, his new majority is a little bit too thin: his own parly, Tahoeraa Huiraatira. holds only I 3 seats out of 30, and the coalition he has formed with Emile Vernaudon’s Aia api parly gives him only three more, or a majority of one.

Vcrnaudon, nicknamed “the Sheriff by the grateful inhabi tants of the small township of Mahina, of which he is mayor, because of the slrongarm methods he uses in dealing with criminals and juvenile delinquents, is moreover disturbingly ebullient and temperamental. To reward him with the post of speaker ol the house, as Flosse had to do to secure his support, is therefore as appropriate as inviting the proverbial bull into the china shop.

During the first sessions of the new assembly, however, Flosse was gratified to see that three of the non-committed assemblymen, representing minor parties or just themselves, also voted with him. But if they are not constantly and richly rewarded in future, their support will probably soon evaporate.

In the meantime, the new majority in the assembly enthusiastically elected Flosse to the post he coveted most, that of vice-president of the executive Government Council which

makes him a son of prime minister for local affairs, second in the local hierarchy to the French High Commissioner, who acts onl\ on orders from Paris. Five of the six other councillors elected at the same lime as Flosse (they are more or less seriously described as ‘ministers’) are fine young technocrats who will stand by Flosse through thick and thin.

The most noteworthy of them are the university-trained Leonlicff brothers, Alexandre, 33, and Boris, 27. Their grandfather was a general in the tsarist army in pre revolutionary Russia.

Incidentally, when the new ‘ministers’ arrived to take over their offices they found that some of their predecessors had carted off all official files, presumably in order to conceal or destroy incriminating material.

As lor the new opposition, it is made up of the six re-elected assemblymen of Teariki’s party Here aia (The Patriots), and the three newly elected members of the socialist, pro-independence, anti-nuclear parly la mana te nunaa (Power to the People), aged 35, 36 and 38.

True to their popular image as ‘naughty boys’, the latter immediately created uproar by insisting on addressing the assembly in their mother longue. Polynesian. They were quickly joined by the six Here aia assemblymen, and since there is no Frenchman left in the Territorial Assembly since Frantz Vanizelte lost his seal last May, everybody eventually agreed that it was perhaps time to switch over to the language that they all understood best.

Well, practically everybody, for loud objections continued to be heard for some time from a new Aia api assemblyman whose name is Napoleon Spitz. He therefore fell it incumbent upon him to defend French honour. But he, too, in the end met his Waterloo.

Even after this triumph of the pro-Polynesian forces, there remained the embarrassing technical problem that many of the assembly secretaries speak only French and are therefore unable to record the debates.

The journalists working for the local French-language dailies lound themselves in the same awkward situation, and several of them were so infuriated that they threatened to slay away from the assembly altogether until a simultaneous translation system was installed. The incorrigible la mana boys gleefully suggested a cheaper and more efficient solution: that the newspapers hire Polynesian-speaking journalists . . .

As we explained last month, Francis Sanford lost the May 23 election mainly because he had become too complacent, and had left it to others to carry on the anti-colonial and anti-nuclear struggle of which he had been the foremost champion during the fateful years of 1967-77, when he was deputy for French Polynesia. Those who picked up the fallen torch were above all the la mana re nunaa leaders.

But from 1980 onwards similar ‘revolutionary’ demands also began to be heard from the most unexpected quarter, namely Gaston Flosse’s Tahoeraa Huiraatira party, which is affiliated with the RPR Gaullist party of Jacques Chirac, who is an ardent

Opposition leader Gaston Flosse (centre) introduces his proposed new constitution at a Papeete press conference in early 1980. Having won power in the May 1982 elections, Mr Flosse now understands that it is much easier to draft a new constitution than to put it into effect.

defender of the nuclear strike force, and considers French Polynesia to be an ‘integral part' of France.

In December 1981, Flosse himself went so far as to push through legislation in the Territorial Assembly setting up a committee of inquiry into the radiation problem. The committee was to be made up of impartial French and foreign radio biologists. (PIM Feb pl 4). Teariki and other Here Aia assemblymen repeatedly accused Flosse of having stolen their programme in an opportunistic effort to attract Polynesian votes to his party during the forthcoming elections.

Flosse swore that he was in good faith in asking for full internal self-government and an end to the nuclear tests, at least until a thorough investigation of the radiation problem had been made.

I To prove his sincerity, the first thing he did after taking over Te reins of government was to fly off to Paris, taking with him lot only the speaker of the house and his most trusted ;ollaborators. but also the majestic Napoleon. As could be easily Treseen, they immediately ran smack into the same brick wall in which all Polynesian leaders have beaten their heads bloody n the past.

The reason why all ministers in Paris are still fending off Polynesian attempts to win more freedom and to gel rid of the ibominable bomb is the same today as in the 1960 s and 19705: he sad fact is that Mitterrand has taken over lock, stock and barrel the policy of nuclear grandeur of his predecessors de jaulle, Pompidou and Giscard d’Eslaing. This means that the slands where nuclear tests are carried out must remain under Yench control indefinitely. On the other hand, in New

Caledonia, which today is of very little value to France, the aspirations of the Melanesian people to win independence are taken seriously into account by Mitterrand’s ministers.

If there was a difference this time, it was one of degree only.

For instance, the new minister for defence, Charles Hernu, displayed very little of the diplomatic finesse and capacity for charming double talk possessed in such large measure by all his Gaullist predecessors. He made it brutally clear to Flosse, Napoleon. Vernaudon and Leontieff that they had better busy themselves with something more useful than protesting against the nuclear tests.

Convinced (like all his predecessors) that every man has his price, he nevertheless promised them if they behaved - ‘some compensation for the socio-economic nuisance suffered by the Polynesian people' since the military bases were established in 1964.

As for the health hazards, Hernu pooh-poohed the idea that there might be any at all, and offered his ‘personal guarantee that the nuclear tests are harmless, a fact which has moreover been confirmed by New Zealand scientists'. To set up an independent committee of inquiry, as the Territorial Assembly had decided just before Christmas 1981, could therefore serve no purpose whatsoever.

The secretary of state for French overseas territories, Henri Emmanuelli, and his boss. Minister of the Interior Gaston DetTerre, were slightly more cordial. Emmanuelli even promised to come to Tahiti at the end of July to discuss with the elected representatives of the Polynesian people ‘the possibility of making constitutional adjustments at the local level’.

As an example of one possible reform, he mentioned the promotion of the vice-president of the Government Council to full president. At the same time, the other councillors might be styled ministers provided that their services continue to be run by expatriate Frenchmen! The only hitch to the implementation of this grandiose reform seems to be that it must be approved by the French parliament which, unfortunately, is so overloaded with new bills that this one may not pass until the end of the year . . .

Guess who cried ‘foul’ loudest when Flosse, on his return to Tahiti, tried, with a wonderfully straight face, to make his trip to Paris sound like the beginning of a new era? Yes, correct, it was the la mana te nunaa assemblymen. The very fact that the local socialists constantly criticise the Polynesian majority parly, which in turn works hand in hand with the Gaullist opposition in France, which is now ruled by Mitterrand’s socialists is, in our opinion, the best possible argument for

scrapping the present absurd system of government.

Marie-

Therese and Bengt Danielsson

acqui Drollet (centre) is hauled off by gendarmes after he and [?]ellow members of the la Mana te Nunaa party had unfurled an [?]nti-nuclear protest banner during the visit to Papeete of former French President Giscard d’Estaing in July, 1979. Drollet, along with two other members of his party, was elected in May to Fench Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly. - Bengt Danielsson [?]hoto.

Happier times. Francis Sanford (right) with his aide Maco Tevane. Mr Sanford was his party’s sole survivor in the May 1982 elections to the Territorial Assembly. Mr Tevane lost his seat.